International

Survey finds number of deacons at lowest level since 2011

A new survey from the U.S. Bishops’ Conference and George town University shows that the number of permanent deacons in active ministry in the U.S. last year is the lowest since 2011, which “is [a trend] in keeping with the slow decline of the diaconate over the past several years.” The survey, “A Portrait of […]

Iraq launches TV station to save Syriac language

A new television channel has been launched in Iraq as an initiative to save Syriac, a language spoken for more than 2,000 years which was once the most common in Christian liturgies. An ancient dialect of Aramaic, Syriac has traditionally been the language spoken by Christians in Iraq and neighbouring Syria. The goal of the […]

Pope Francis ‘progressively improving’ after abdominal surgery

Pope Francis’s medical team reported June 9 morning that two days after undergoing surgery for an abdominal hernia, the pontiff is continually improving and spent the morning reading following a lengthy rest the day before. A June 9 statement from the Vatican said that Pope Francis “rested well during the night,” and that his medical […]

Nigeria: Suspected Fulani militia kill 100 in ongoing attacks

The bodies of Nigerians kill-ed in a May 15-16 terror attack are piled in a mass grave, and will soon be buried. The killings come amid years of violence in northern and central Nigeria, perpetrated by Muslim Fulani herding com-munities and Islamist terrorist groups, the victims are mostly Christian farming villages in the agricultural Middle […]

Most churchgoers don’t believe political divides in church are worsening

Today, Public Religion Re-search Institute (PRRI) released a new survey report finding that church attendance and the im-portance of religion continue to decline among most Americans. “Religion and Congregations in a Time of Social and Political Upheaval,” details the findings of a national survey examining the health of American religious congregations in the wake of […]

Scorsese says answering pope’s call, will make Jesus film

Italo-American director Martin Scorsese told the Jesuits’ international magazine in Rome on May 27 that he had decided to answer Pope Francis’s recent call to show Jesus to the cinema-going public. “I’ve responded to the appeal which the pope made to artists in the only way I know how: imagining and writing a screenplay for […]

Belgian Bp : Our Decision to Bless Same-Sex Unions Is “Not Going Against the Pope”

The bishop of Antwerp, Belgium, said that because Pope Francis has not voiced his opposition specifically to the Flemish bishops’ decision to bless same-sex unions, he has taken that as tacit approval for their action. Bishop Johan Bonny said in a May 17 interview with Katholi-sch.de that he had had “two conversations” with Francis from […]

German dioceses persist with laity role in governance

Two German dioceses are forging ahead with lay participation in Church governance, despite warnings from the Vatican. The dioceses have begun to put reforms proposed by the German synodal path initiative into practice, especially that of involving the laity in governance. In the Diocese of Osnabrück, which has been vacant since the Pope accepted Bishop Franz-Josef Bode’s […]

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Youth taught to use social media to become Good Samaritans

Pakistan’s oldest priest passes away at 97